The adventurers were ready and raring to go. Each had a backpack filled to the brim with clothes, rations, herbal remedies, weapons and other assorted survival equipment. Sepwise carried a particularly childish pack, being a kind of lime-green colour with a large blue star on the front carrying the moniker ‘Courtesy of Thercoup School of Natural Science upon becoming a true Scientist’.
Sepwise wriggled his pack into a more comfortable position, one that didn’t result in his vials sticking in his back, then turned to the others and checked they were all kitted out. ‘Okay. Everyone ready?’
Trussuk looked over his shoulder. ‘What’s going to happen to my drums?’ he asked.
‘Oh, they’ll be alright here,’ said Sepwise, with precisely no concern for Trussuk’s fabled instruments. ‘Right, then. Off we go.’
It took a few seconds before Sepwise realised that nobody was going to move. He had expected an explosion of spirited eagerness as his men swept excitedly into the island’s interior, desperate to discover its hidden treasures and fabulous secrets. In the event, they stood stock still and looked around uncertainly. Sepwise’s eyes darted from face to face as he tried to pick out somebody who seemed eager to go. There was nobody. ‘Well, go on, then,’ he urged.
Trussuk was the first to move. He shifted his weight to his other foot, looked up confidently and spoke. ‘Who?’ he said.
‘Any of you, I don’t care,’ said Sepwise.
‘Why don’t you go first?’ suggested Andrew.
Sepwise stifled a brief laugh. He looked at Andrew astonished. ‘Me,’ he said. ‘Me? Go first? Are you mad? What if something were to happen to me? Remember the four foundations of fruition? What if I were killed? Do you really think you could survive without my leadership? Eh? Anyone?’
He looked around, certain that his speech had made the desired impact. His gaze met with the looks of four people certain that he was insane.
‘Look,’ he said after taking a few deep breaths, ‘this is what we, the pioneers, have been waiting for. This is our moment. This is our destiny, our reason for being. We shouldn’t be afraid to boldy stride forwards into the...’
‘Oh, for Safariz’ sake,’ interrupted Armoro. ‘I’ll go first. Anything to shut him up.’ He pushed his way through the team and started to climb the dune.
The others moved off, obediently following single file behind Armoro. Sepwise joined the line at the rear, happy in the knowledge that his speech had spurred his team into action, and started his ascent up the dune. The sand beneath his feet was very very fine and had a tendency to give way when trodden on, so every step forward only moved him physically a few inches uphill.
The trek was a long and tiring one. The actual distance covered may only have been a hundred metres or so, but it felt like a mile and a half. Eventually, and after much panting and groaning, Sepwise clambered over the top of the dune, battling his way angrily through the thick marram grass that had colonised the upper reaches. He knew from past experience that walking through the grass with bare legs was surprisingly painful as the stalks whipped against the skin like the lashes of a device he once found in a merchant sailor’s quarters. He was entirely grateful for his long, tough alchemist’s robe (for the first time ever in his life) and silently thanked the Gods for making him short enough to fit fully into it in the vertical sense.
He found the rest of the team sitting down amongst the blades, staring silently around them. He was about to remind them of their obligations as adventurers when the view hit him. The beach had provided pretty spectacular vistas, but from the top of the dune the sight was simply astounding. Sepwise sat down with the others, breathtaken. To the right, he could see the beach curving away slowly round the island. It stretched much further than he had imagined. It was very close to being one long, continuous, golden stretch of sand, but was very subtly broken up into a series of individual bays.
The sight reminded him of the stories his father used to tell when he was young. Stories about pirates sailing to a distant island that was fringed with a series of spectacular coves, where they would securely stash their glinting hordes until they could be picked up on a return voyage. They used to tell of a great Queen that ruled the island. They said that she had the power of the Gods, that she had knowledge beyond the most learned of men, and that she was cruel and unpredictable like a raging hurricane. They described the great monsters they’d encountered, the epic battles they’d fought, the hordes of small, red, vicious goblin-like creatures that infested the island. They said it was a sacred land, and that nobody should ever return there.
The memories faded. He looked over to the left instead. The beach stretched that way too, but was more rocky. If anything, it was even more spectacular than the uniform beauty of the other direction. The rock formations were high, some only marginally lower than the dune they sat upon. Here and there, waterfalls fell between the cracks as rivers met the end of their journey. Large sea birds perched on the edges looking into the sea below, occasionally diving into the crashing waves and emerging with a wriggling fish.
Behind him lay the interior of the island. It was thick with vegetation, more so than anywhere on the water-parched Thercoup. The island was not quite tropical, though, as he had assumed from the outset it would be. It had a temperate climate, and the vegetation was decidedly deciduous. The marram grass of the dunes gave way to regular grasses that became more populated with trees the farther he looked into the island. Not far away, a small river meandered its way inland, towards the larger trees that made up most of the interior forests.
‘That river,’ pointed Sepwise. ‘I suggest we follow it. It will provide us with water and a means of navigation.’
Nobody was listening. They were all deep in their thoughts. Jeudd was composing, Andrew was examining the soil type, Armoro was contemplating how peaceful the natives must be living in such a paradise and Trussuk was thinking about the huge spears he could make from the large trees in the distance.
‘We cannot afford to rest,’ said Sepwise sternly. He jumped to his feet. ‘Come on, men. We must continue our journey.’
The adventurers moaned heartily, dragged themselves to their feet, pulled on their bags and reluctantly trudged off towards the river. Armoro once again took the lead, followed by Jeudd who was feverishly writing on some parchment, then by Andrew telling Trussuk about climatic climax vegetation and finally by Sepwise.
They walked for several hours. They reached the river, they followed it. They reached the forest boundary, they entered it. They noticed the darkness, the eeriness of the forest, they were scared by it. They didn’t stop until they found something worth stopping for.
<=> <=> <=>
‘What is it?’ asked Jeudd.
‘It’s a message,’ said Armoro. ‘At least, I think it is.’
Sepwise was standing at the back of the group. The bulk of Trussuk was preventing him from seeing the object of their discussions, and he couldn’t go round the adventurer because the river was to their left and there was a big bush to his right. ‘Hey, Armoro, what is it?’ he shouted.
Armoro ignored him. ‘I have seen similar before,’ he said to Jeudd. ‘I have treated several patients that were habitually compelled to carve such markings. They don’t usually mean anything by it, it’s just a way of expressing the violent, aggressive aspects of their natures via a harmless medium. It’s a form of release. Concerning, certainly, but preferable to engaging in the real thing. No, I don’t think it’s worth worrying about.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Jeudd. ‘It looks fairly serious to me.’
‘Yes, but you are not a trained psychoanalyst. You are a wordsmith. This is my area of expertise and my judgement is sound.’
At the rear of the group, Sepwise was jumping persistently up Trussuk’s back, trying to see over his shoulder, but it wasn’t getting him anywhere; the man was just too big. ‘Hey, Armoro,’ he shouted again. ‘I can’t see. What’s there?’
‘I suggest we carry on,’ said Armoro.
‘Speak to me, Armoro,’ screamed Sepwise, clambering all over the warrior. ‘I command you.’
Trussuk turned angrily on the scientist, his temper fraying. ‘Will you stop that?’ he said.
‘I’m only trying to see,’ said the scientist. ‘Anyway, it’s up to me to make the decisions, not Armoro.’
‘I think we should let Armoro decide this one,’ said Trussuk. ‘He says it’s his area of expertise.’
‘Oh does he now? Well, then let’s put him in charge then shall we?’ Sepwise was fuming under his robes. As far as he was concerned, Armoro was dangerously exceeding his authority. He tried again to push Trussuk out of the way, but the big adventurer wouldn’t budge.
‘Come on,’ said Armoro finally. ‘There’s nothing to fear.’
‘I don’t like it,’ said Andrew.
‘Why not?’ asked Armoro. ‘Does it frighten you?’
‘No. I just don’t understand why this soil is gleyed. It... it doesn’t make sense.’
Armoro looked at Jeudd. They were both thinking the same thing. He turned back and took another look at the message standing ominously before him. He was not entirely convinced by his own interpretation if he was perfectly honest with himself, but he very rarely was these days so he decided not to let it bother him. Taking a deep breath, and stealing a quick glance at Trussuk’s arsenal of weaponry (just for assurance), he stepped beyond the mysterious object and resumed his struggle through the coarse foliage of the forest. Jeudd watched him go, but hesitated to follow for a few seconds, convinced that something somewhere wasn’t quite right, and that he wasn’t completely sure whether what he was doing was the right thing, then came to a decision and set off after the brain man after all. Andrew, a million miles away as usual, followed them absent-mindedly, rubbing some earth between his fingers, and Trussuk happily trotted off with him, finally allowing Sepwise to get a good look at this whatever-it-was that had caused so much discussion in the first place.
What it was was this: it was hideous; absolutely stomach-churning; the sort of thing that only appears briefly in late-night horror movies that feature no plot but lots of gore. More specifically, it was a large rock, smoothed off on one face, upon which was painted a tableau. Depicted in striking colours and disturbing detail were scenes of death and carnage the likes of which the scientist had never before seen or even imagined. There were pictures of dismembered limbs, decapitated heads, gruesome torture devices. There were people having their fingers hacked off, hair set alight, skin sliced off. One even showed a man having his eyes removed with spoons. Surrounding the rock was a collection of the most sickening trophies imaginable, collected and prepared by who-knows-what manner of villain: shrunken heads, necklaces of fingers, eyeballs on stalks, fingernail-statuettes; all placed neatly and carefully in crumbly rock as if to form some sort of macabre flower arrangement.
But this is the sort of thing you’d expect to come across on barbaric pre-civilisation islands such as these. What you wouldn’t expect to come across, and what really worried Sepwise, was the portrait of a participant in this anarchic behaviour: a beautiful woman wearing a long black flowing dress and a smile that could calm an Eckian volcano. She seemed completely out of place in the picture, very much a Backarnaboothian in Gufthanaville. Why would such a gentle-looking lady be involved in all this? Who could she be? And why was she given such prominence? All questions that Sepwise very much didn’t want to find the answer to. Without any hesitation, he sent some electrical impulses down the nerves in his legs and sprinted after his companions.
As he ran, he considered Armoro. Armoro who had come to the conclusion that the rock was nothing to worry about. Armoro who had said it was perfectly safe to carry on. Armoro who was dangerously impulsive and likely to get them all killed.
I mean, he thought as he leapt awkwardly over underfoot shrubs and branches, what might happen if they bumped into this woman somewhere during their travels? And they were bound to, weren’t they, let’s face it. That’s just the sort of thing that happens to a team of poor unsuspecting adventurers, especially when they are collectively less cohesive than a handful of sand. So when they did run into the lady in black, what would she do to them? Blind them, kneecap them, chop their fingers off and pull their hair out? Great fun, that. Just what they came here for.
He finally caught up with the others as they squelched their way across a swampy river plain and grabbed hold of Armoro. He explained in no uncertain terms that he thought they should go back, but Armoro would have none of it. They had already passed the warning, what difference would it make turning round now?
What difference indeed...